Is it bad that my immediate reaction was "you got snow?". I'm from the west coast originally anyways so I'm not used to such things. It is pretty nice here so you should try surfing either way. Being near your family is always good.
Those all sound like solid choices, but I personally still think you chose wisely in philosophy. Do you really? Good luck with that since for some people I don't even know if you'd want to know how they work.